Yes
11% (532)

No
89% (4101)

4633 total votes.

The language specifies that federal war memorials or those sanctioned by the American Battle Monuments Commission can include any of 57 religious symbols authorized by the National Cemetery Association, including the Christian cross.

The amendment has gone unchallenged in the House, according to Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper.

But the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State is objecting.

“Passage of this amendment would further the false notion that religious symbols are appropriate for use in government-established and acquired military memorials, and that the failure to include such symbols is hostile to religion,” said Maggie Garrett, the group’s legislative director. “Including religious symbols in monuments leads to exclusion, division and the trivialization of religious symbols.”

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., may follow Hunter’s lead and insert a similar amendment in the Senate version of the defense bill, which is scheduled for consideration by that body next month.

Underlying the issue are ongoing court challenges from groups such as Americans United, which oppose having religious symbols on federal lands.

The Soledad cross has been the subject of litigation for years, and a 2011 ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it violated the First Amendment’s ban on government favoring one religion over another.

That case remains in federal court in San Diego, where negotations aimed at a settlement are ongoing.

Kasper said creating a protection for religious symbols on government-owned or sited war memorials is a crucial step for supporters of the Mount Soledad cross.

“It creates a foundation in federal law that courts can look to when considering these kinds of cases,” he said.

Bruce Bailey, president of the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association, said his group hopes the Hunter language survives the legislative process.

“If it does, we would be able to leave our memorial as it is,” he said.

In another matter, Hunter also was successful in inserting a provision into the defense bill requiring the Pentagon to give Congress all the evidence it considered in not granting the Medal of Honor to Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta of San Diego, killed in 2004 during house-to-house fighting in Fallujah, Iraq.

Marines with Peralta swear he purposely shielded them from an insurgent grenade. But a specially-convened Pentagon panel declined to grant the award in 2008, saying a head wound he suffered shortly before grenade’s detonation made it impossible to determine whether his act was deliberate.

He was instead awarded the Navy Cross. Hunter has been pushing ever since to upgrade the award, contending that what Peralta did was identical to other troops who used their bodies to cover a grenade and were subsequently given the nation’s highest military honor.